Though Election Day has come and gone, three senatorial
contests remain unresolved-in Minnesota, to be sure, and in Alaska and
Georgia. But by now the statisticians have had sufficient time to
interpret the election's overall results. In "The Week in Review"
section of last Sunday's New York
Times (November 9, 2008), an interesting analysis appeared
decked out with graphs based on exit polls (and therefore subject to
question), the Times report
indicated that across the nation as a whole American men divided
their votes almost
evenly between Senator Obama and Senator McCain, with the data
giving Mr. Obama a very slight edge of one percent (49 to 48), while American women went
heavily for Mr. Obama, supporting him with a wide majority of 56
percent vs. the 43 percent of that vote that went to Mr. McCain.
Account, however, must be taken of family status to
get a clearer picture of how America's women voted: married Americans,
husbands and
wives, trended
towards Senator McCain, with more than half of their vote (52%)
cast in his favor as against 47 percent in the Obama column. By way of
contrast unmarried
voters, both men and women, gave nearly two thirds
of their votes (65 percent) to Obama, with only 33 percent to
McCain. For America's racial and ethnic minorities racial identity was
an excellent predictor of how their votes would go, with 95 percent of
Blacks voting for Senator Obama-an outcome for which even the
most ardent McCain loyalists will display, I am sure, a measure of
sympathetic understanding-while Hispanic voters,
who in 2004 gave President George W. Bush 44 percent of their vote, supported Senator Obama
in 2008 by more than two thirds (67 percent vs. 31 percent for
McCain). The overheated rhetoric employed by certain talk-show hosts
vis-a- vis immigration issues was probably an important, perhaps a
decisive factor here. Among America's less sizable racial minorities nearly two thirds of
Americans of Asian derivation gave their vote to Senator Obama (62
percent to 35). Senator McCain, however, won the overall backing of White voters by 55 to
43 percent, though with the significant reservation that White voters under 30
years of age went "big time" for Senator Obama.
Ethnic background produced variations in the Catholic
vote. While Hispanic
Catholics went heavily for Obama, America's Catholics
voted as a whole 54 to 45 percent for McCain. [The British
publication The Economist
(Nov. 8) credits Obama with drawing 54% of the Catholic
vote]. Jewish voters
stayed true to their long-standing political allegiance, giving Democratic
Senator Obama a whopping 78 percent of their support vs. 21
percent for Senator McCain. But Mr. McCain scored a major victory with White Protestants,
chalking up 65 percent of their votes vs. 34 percent for Mr.
Obama. Perhaps most surprising of all was the finding that a majority of
America's wealthiest
citizens-those with an annual income of more than
$200,000-voted for
Senator Obama, despite his announced plan to target their group
for heavier taxation. (For anecdotal confirmation of that surprising
fact just take a drive sometime soon along St. Paul's Summit Avenue or
the Mississippi River Boulevard with their adjoining side streets,
before the Obama-Biden lawn signs start coming down). The heart hath
its reasons of which the mind would know naught.
Assembling an impressive coalition of Blacks, Hispanics,
Jews, voters across the board under the age of thirty, a majority of
the unmarried and a majority of the wealthy, with a staggering
advantage in funding and with heavy support from the media, Senator
Obama focused his message on two simple ideas- hope and change- and
with his eloquence and calm inspired legions of volunteers to get out
the vote. Even those who are appalled at his anti-life zealotry will
concede that he ran a brilliant campaign. And should the radical shift
in the vote in once solidly Republican Oakland County, Michigan to
predominantly Democratic in the recent election be taken as a portent
for the future? In the New York Times
for November 11th Stanley Greenberg offered this assessment.

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Goodbye, Reagan
Democrats
By: Stanley B. Greenberg
The New York Times Op-Ed Tuesday, November 11, 2008

.... Oakland County has formed part of the Republican
heartland in Michigan and in the country. From 1972 to 1988,
Democratic presidential candidates in their best years lost the county
by 20 points. From Bill Clinton to John Kerry, however, Democrats
began to settle for a draw. Over the past two decades, Oakland
County began to change, as an influx of teachers, lawyers, and
high-tech professionals began to outnumber the county's business owners
and managers....almost a quarter of Oakland's residents are members of
various racial minorities.

These changes have produced a more tolerant and culturally
liberal population. uncomfortable with today's Republican Party. When
we conducted our poll of 600 voters in Oakland.County on election
night, they were a lot more open than voters in [next-door,
blue-collar] Macomb [County] to gay marriage and affirmative
action. We asked those who voted for Mr. Obama why they made their
choice. At the top of the list was his promise to withdraw troops from
Iraq, followed by his support for tax cuts for the middle class and
affordable health care for all, and the idea that he will bring people
together, end the old politics and get things done.

On Tuesday, Oakland County voters gave Mr. Obama a 57
percent to 42 percent victory over John McCain--those 15 points
translated into an astonishing 96,000-vote margin. That helped form one
of the most important new national changes in the electorate; Mr. Obama
built up a striking dominance in the country's growing, [ever] more
diverse and well-educated suburbs....

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Accompanying-the charts in last Sunday's Times was a
summary written by Marjorie Connelly.lay I share it with ycu here.

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Dissecting
the Changing Electorate
By Marjorie Connelly
From: The New York Times
Sunday, November 9. 2008

One way to consider Barack Obarna's success last Tuesday
is to consider John McCain's failure. By virtually every electoral
measure-including age, sex, race, religion - Mr. McCain lost ground won
by George W. Bush four years ago.

For Mr. Obama, the opposite happened. He performed better
than John Kerry did among nearly every voter group-significantly
better, in some cases.

The president-elect won overwhelmingly among Blacks,
Hispanics and voters under the age of 30. He made inroads among
important swing groups, including Catholics, suburbanites, political
independents, even veterans. He won in the Midwest, where Mr. Kerry had
lost. He even made small gains among groups that typically have been
solidly Republican-whites, conservatives, Southerners, regularr
churchgoers.

A deep generational divide revealed itself. Voters under
45 backed Mr. Obama; those 60 and over supported Mr. McCain. The rest
were divided.

The results also suggest that a significant political
realignment may be at hand. The gap between voters who identified
themselves either as Democrats or Republicans grew by 7 percentage
points, giving Democrats their largest advantage since 1980.

This portrait of the 2008 election is drawn from the
results of Election Day exit interviews by Edison Media Research and
Mitofsky International with 17,836 voters at 300 polling places around
the nation, and of 2,378 telephone interviews with absentee and early
voters.

Here are some of the details:

Voters under 30 backed Mr. Obama over Mr. McCain by 34
percentage points. Only Ronald Reagan in 1984 and Bill Clinton in 1992,
each with 19-point advantages among these voters, came close, if it can
be called that.

Older voters were the only age group to give Mr. McCain a
majority. They supported Mr. Reagan in 1984 but switched to the
Democrats during the Clinton years. Four years ago, they were President
Bush's strongest age group.

Blacks gave Mr. Obama 95 percent of their votes, a record.
Mr. Obama also won back gains with Hispanic voters made by Mr. Bush.
White voters continued to back the Republican candidate. The exception
was whites under 30. They backed Mr. Obama after votingfor Mr. Bush in
2000 and 2004.

Whites made up 74 percent of voters, the lowest share ever
in a nationwide presidential exit poll. Blacks were 13 percent of
voters, their largest share ever, but only a slight increase.

Four years ago, Republicans and Democrats each
represented 37 percent of the electorate. This year, 39 percent of
voters said they were Democrats; 32 percent identified themselves as
Republicans.

Mr. Obama won a majority of independents, the first time a
Democrat has done so since exit polls began in 1972.

Mr. McCain won strong support among voters who said their
family's finances were better than four years ago. Mr. Obarna won among
those whose financial situation had deteriorated.

Voters with lower incomes typically vote Democratic, and
they did again this year. Mr. Obama won 60 percent of voters with
annual household incomes under, $50,000. Mr. Obama was also
backed by a majority of those making over $200,000 a remarkable
turn for a Democrat. Four years
ago, Mr. Bush's strongest showing
was among wealthy voters.

City dwellers sided with Mr. Obama. Voters in small towns
and rural areas preferred Mr. McCain. Suburban voters were closely
split. A majority of suburban women voted for Mr. Obama; most surburban
men backed Mr. McCain.

Mr. Obama won majorities in the Northeast, Midwest and
West. Mr. McCain won in the South, which Republicans have won since
2000.